1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic cellular telephone systems, and more particularly to an improved user interface for a cellular telephone system subscriber unit.
2. Description of Related Art
Cellular telephones have become very popular as communication devices. Typical cellular telephones are small, hand-held devices that provide a keypad for data entry and a display to see the results of such entry. As the popularity of hand-held cellular telephones has increased, the number of features offered by such devices has increased.
A problem with the numerous features offered by cellular telephones is that they are frequently difficult to use. Because of the limited keyboard (typically a 0-9 numeric keypad plus several additional function keys) and the limited amount of display (commonly only a single fine), accessing and using such features as telephone directories, xe2x80x9ccannedxe2x80x9d messages, security features, and the like are often confusing and difficult.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a hand-held cellular telephone system that offers various xe2x80x9cuser-friendlyxe2x80x9d features that are easy to use despite the space limitations of a keyboard and display inherent in a hand-held design. The present invention overcomes these limitations by providing innovative ways in which to enter data and access a number of user convenient features, including improved search capabilities, security features, and alphanumeric data entry features.
An improved user interface for cellular or mobile phones, including the following functions:
(1) A predictive keyboard input method that initially displays to a user the most commonly used characters for selected words in a particular language (e.g., English), associating those characters with programmable keys, and then accepting the user""s put Thereafter, a next set of characters is displayed that are most likely to occur after the character previously input by the user.
(2) A word completion method in which a telephone displays user-defined or pre-defined candidate words matching initial characters input by a user, and assigns those candidate words to one or more available programmable keys. If one of the candidate words is the word being entered by the user, then the user need only press the associated programmable key to have the entirety of the candidate word automatically entered into the display.
(3) A distinctive signaling method useful in a dual-mode or tri-mode cellular phone system that incorporates both voice call functionality and data messaging functionality. Distinctive signaling is used to distinguish incoming voice calls from incoming data messages, and further to distinguish between various different data message types by examining header information in a received data message.
(4) A secret message method that permits secret messages to be received by a user of a cellular telephone that includes a data messaging capability. An incoming messages is received and stored before being displayed. All or selected received and stored messages are blocked from being displayed to persons other than the intended recipient by requiring input of a personal identification number or code. In an alternative embodiment a received message indicates its source and requires the receiver to input a code corresponding to the source, thus allowing each sender to xe2x80x9cencryptxe2x80x9d a message with a key unique to the sender, which the receiving party must know in advance to xe2x80x9cdecryptxe2x80x9d.
(5) A message screening method that permits a user to set a message screening mode in a cellular telephone. This mode allows screening of incoming data messages, such as in a CDPD system When an incoming data message is received by a cellular telephone, an ID field from a header in the incoming data packet is examined to determine whether the source of the message is not from an xe2x80x9cincludedxe2x80x9d list or is from an xe2x80x9cexcludedxe2x80x9d list. Screened out messages are discarded, flagged as low priority, or rejected before acceptance to lower user communication costs.
(6) An improved xe2x80x9cscratchpadxe2x80x9d method which permits a user to enter a telephone number into a storage register of a cellular telephone while in the middle of a voice call, visually verify the entry, and then save the number to a rapid redial location for later use.
(7) A global search method for searching text strings in all of the different memory sections of a cellular telephone having an address book, a hierarchical menu structure, and stored data messages.
The details of the preferred embodiment of the present invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Once the details of the invention are known, numerous additional innovations and changes will become obvious to one skilled in the art.